The Day Arrogance Will Be Trounced

By David Ettinger

Our Arrogant Society
I began my sports-writing career at age 21, covering sporting events in southern New Mexico. Back then, before I gave my life to Christ at age 28, I enjoyed the sports “scene.”

Coaches and athletes spoke “big,” that is, they made big claims and would not admit to fear. It didn’t matter that my alma mater, New Mexico State University, was one of the worst college football teams in the country and that they would be playing a Top Ten team in a few days, they thoroughly believed they would win, and boldly expressed such. Likewise, athletes never admitted to nerves or trepidation; they were going to go out there and win the day. At the time, such bravado and cocky assurance were attractive to me; it suited my aggressive and equally cocky personality.

But that was decades ago. I am now 61 years old and I have been walking with the Lord for the past 33 of them. What I once admired, I now despise. Cockiness, pride, and arrogance have become abhorrent to me; after all, the Bible clearly teaches that God abhors them. Yet, we live in a world filled with rampant pride and arrogance. Though I used to love professional and collegiate sports, now I can barely endure them. Hollywood and the national media are the same way. The arrogance which spews from the mouths of professional athletes, actors, and journalists is crass, vile, and empty. Not only do I find sports unwatchable, I deem the ramblings of arrogant celebrities to be just as unlistenable.

Here in the U.S., arrogance inundates society. In fact, 2 Timothy 3:1-2 tells us: “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant …” Bingo! However, if there is any consolation for those who detest this plague of arrogance, it is that the Lord Almighty does as well, and He will personally trounce it into extinction.

Targeted for Extinction
The Bible is rife with verses concerning the end-times, specifically those describing the return of the Lord Jesus to punish and destroy His enemies (Revelation 19:21). One of His targets for destruction will be the proud and arrogant. This determination comes courtesy of Isaiah 2:12-22.

In a clear end-of-the-age text, the prophet tells us:

For the Lord of hosts will have a day of reckoning against everyone who is proud and lofty and against everyone who is lifted up, that he may be abased. … The pride of man will be humbled and the loftiness of men will be abased; and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day … Men will go into caves of the rocks and into holes of the ground before the terror of the Lord and the splendor of His majesty, when He arises to make the earth tremble. … Stop regarding man, whose breath of life is in his nostrils; for why should he be esteemed? (Isaiah 12:12, 17, 19, 22).

Note how during this climactic time of human history the Lord will target the proud and arrogant. Of interest is that they will not be destroyed at first. Before this inevitable fate, the prideful will be brought low; they will be “abased,” “humbled,” and made to “tremble” as they cower in the “caves of the rocks” and the “holes of the ground.”

In that terrifying day, men and women will no longer exalt themselves, but “the Lord alone will be exalted.” They will have no more to say in the Day of the Lord’s vengeance, and they will see themselves for the vulnerable, mortal creatures they are. These that elevated man and ridiculed – or flat-out denied – God, will realize their foolishness and melt under its massive weight.

Therefore, God warns us: “Stop regarding man, whose breath of life is in his nostrils; for why should he be esteemed?” This verse is not saying we cannot admire certain people, but that, as a whole, the human race is not to be exalted, but to be seen as a feeble collection of flesh and blood with no control over its fate. God will determine that. Man is not to be regarded or esteemed; only the Lord God Almighty.

Harsh Words?
Does this post seem harsh? It shouldn’t; it is merely an examination of what the Lord Himself has declared, and it WILL be accomplished. We can speak all we want of God’s love, tenderness, and faithfulness, but these work hand-in-hand with his holiness, righteousness, and wrath. We cannot pick and choose when it comes to God’s attributes.

But there is one thing we can do, and that is to proclaim the message of salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ to the proud and arrogant people in our lives. Most won’t listen, but some will. I know this for sure – I was once one of those proud and arrogant.

Tagged: Arrogance, God's Judgment, the end-times, the New Testament, theology, Western Culture

Posted in: Application, Bible study, Bible teaching, Christ's Deity, Christian Behavior, Christian Ethics, Christianity, Commentary, Devotional, Editorial/Blog, End-Times Judgment, God's Divine Plans, God's Judgment, Justice, Moral Corruption, New Testament, Obeying God, prophecy, theology